TAMPA, Fla. -- So we're in Florida and meeting up with subscribers. That's not new. This is our fifth year of doing this, and we'll be doing it again tonight at Amalie Arena, during the first intermission of Penguins vs. Lightning, just as we did it a couple nights ago over in Sunrise.
That's the picture up top, by the way. Wonderful group, and there were so many others who stopped by after Matt Sunday snapped that.
One question I always ask at these events: Where are you from?
That might sound silly, given that these people are where they are when they're being asked. But the Pittsburgh diaspora, or even just people who happen to be fans of our city's three teams, tend to be way more widespread than that, so the answers tend to match that. Among this South Florida group, there were plenty of ex-pats who now live in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area, a couple who actually flew down from Pittsburgh, and a few scattered.
So I thought, this week, I'd invest Site Stuff in a geographical breakdown of where our readers are.
Disclaimer: This isn't based on actual subscriber info, partially because our subscriber database is so scattered we don't even have that. But we do have Google Analytics, which shows where readership comes from, and that's as close as we'd need to get for an exercise like this. The percentages below are based on the past 12 full months.
Here we go ...
Top 10 non-U.S. countries
1. Canada, 2.87%
2. United Kingdom, 0.57%
3. Australia, 0.37%
4. Mexico, 0.32%
5. Germany, 0.27%
6. Norway, 0.20%
7. Peru, 0.14%
8. France, 0.14%
9. India, 0.14%
10. Sweden, 0.12%
Noteworthy: We were read in 212 countries/territories over the past year. For real. ... The U.S. accounts for 91.96 percent, by the way. ... We're grateful for our Canadian subscribers, as I often write, and not just the hockey fans. We hear from Steelers and Pirates fans up there, too. ... I always feel like the U.K. number can be bigger. Same with France. Lots of fan clubs in both countries. Open to suggestions. ... Mexico rocks for the Steelers. Just got another sign-up from there last week. ... Peru? Huh? To my main dudes Alex and Daniel in Brazil -- now 19th -- you need to step up the game down there! We had a meetup in Rio! ... Nothing makes me more proud than seeing Iraq (68th), Afghanistan (71st) and other war zones on this list. To all of you who serve, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Top 10 non-Pittsburgh cities
1. New York, 3.94%
2. Washington, 3.82%
3. Chicago, 1.75%
4. Boston, 1.57%
5. Philadelphia, 1.44%
6. Los Angeles, 1.03%
7. Atlanta, 0.97%
8. Detroit, 0.94%
9. Columbus, 0.94%
10. Charlotte, 0.79%
Noteworthy: I'd have to add up Western Pennsylvania markets by hand, and that would take forever, but suffice it to say our home region accounts for roughly 52 percent of our total readership. ... Pittsburgh proper, meaning the actual city limits, is at 6.09 percent. ... Among Pittsburgh suburbs, Greensburg is our hottest at 0.92 percent. ... Our highest-ranked foreign city is Toronto at 23rd. ... Our highest-ranked overseas city is London at 63rd. ... Top overseas non-European city: Sydney, Australia, at 92nd. ... The state of Virginia, if it were based in a single city, would actually be our No. 1. Huge for us. ... Massive disappointment: Winnipeg plunged all the way to 157th with only 996 unique users. Not sure what more I could do on that front. Only for Taylor Haase's eyes: Wheeling was 70th, and Wilkes-Barre was 179th!
I could seriously do this all day. If you've got any questions that are more specific than what's up here ... we've got a hockey game to cover today, but I'll try to answer as quickly as I can.
In the interim, I'm hereby pleading with our readers in the U.K. and France: Let's talk about ways to connect better. I know there are devoted fans of all three teams over there.
GOOD COLLEGE VIBE
Our reader-suggested Campus Chatter feed, maintained by Hunter Homistek, drew 1,579 page views for the week, less than half the 3,228 of its first week. That's a bummer. We'll try that much harder.
On that note, our friends at the country's preeminent home for college sports coverage reached out to extend an offer to all our current subscribers: Six free months to any site on their network. That's a $50 value, given that their annual subscriptions are $99.95.
The offer expires April 1. So go now to their sign-up page and apply the following code: DKRivals6FREE
CHASING 1,000 DOWNLOADS
Our ongoing big goal is generating 1,000 new app installs by March 28, Major League Baseball's opening day, and we're off to a healthy start with 581 already, though it really slowed down the past few days.
Here's where to get your app:
WE'RE LISTENING
• This portrait/landscape thing everyone told us last week that they want ... it's not going to be as simple as I thought. Before we turned off landscape, there was this weird issue where the site would take on a wholly different look after going back to portrait. That can't happen, obviously, so it's going to take some discussion.
• We're probably more than two months away from this, but we're looking hard at a comprehensive scoreboard/stats package that would serve both the site and the app. I've wanted this forever, and it's taken a while to find the right one. And yes, it'll include all sports at all levels, not just our three major-league teams.
• Amazing -- and really fun -- progress on the Big Announcement front. But all of you have told me to shut up about it until it's done, so I'm doing that.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our daily active app users, averaged out over the past week, are at 12,393, broken down as 9,725 on Apple, 2,668 on Android. That total's minus-364 from the previous week. This figure will always fluctuate with the news, so the goal is a steady, gradual increase, initially to 15,000, a number we've never achieved.
• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past month, are at 68,379. That's minus-2,699 over the same rolling figure from a week ago. The goal with this figure is also about a steady, gradual increase, first to 100,000, a number we've achieved only during Stanley Cup runs.
• Our most-hit article of the past week -- exempting live files -- was Taylor's debut column analyzing Jack Johnson's impact on the rest of the Penguins at 7,686. (She narrowly beat out my Steelers 20 myths column. Guess I'll have to try harder.) The Penguins accounted for 146,671 of our page views, the Steelers 54,141., the Pirates 32,109.
• We're at 29,547 (-9) page likes on Facebook, we're at 29,977 (+105) followers on Twitter, and we're at 9,648 (+68) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
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